Monday, March 17, 2008

call for poems

Hi, everyone! We hope you had a great week writing from our latest prompt. From today until next Sunday, you can post links to your poems in the comment section. Be sure to visit all your fellow poets and read about their traditions, rites of passage, and the like.

Next weekend, we'll post a free-for-all and then on or about April 1, we start the whole thing over again with a new poet and poem up for discussion.

9 comments:

from Therese--Hi, poets. Today is the twenty-seventh anniversary of my father's burial. So I wrote a poem about that moment in my life, which I consider to have been a rite of passage. I don't have a private blog on which to post the poem, so if you would like to read it, send me an email and I'll send you the poem. My email address is: theresebroderick@yahoo.com

Hi, everyone. Here's my attempt at at rite of passage poem. Hope you like it. Ely

First Year

It has to be Daddywho takes him the first time.After his first year,thin curls downy soft all over his collars.

She goes along too.

At the first snip,the first bite of thosesharp silver jaws,she reaches forward,unthinking,for that comma of silk threads,touched with sun,light against the linoleum.She wishes she’d tied a strip of soft thin leatheraround it, like the one capturing herthick dark hair like a thundercloud at noon,so it would rest safeagainst her clavicle on the way home;instead, her palm curls over it,mimicking the shapeof her son’s first cut curl.

from Therese--I think that Ely's haircut poem is beautifully done. It's filled with tenderness. The details are evocative, even for those of us outside his heritage. I think the most effortless (seeming so to the reader) and delicate passage is the "comma of silk threads" passage. It's the heart of the poem, the luminosity. The word "unthinking" is perfect. A comma indicates a pause; likewise, this moment is a transition in the life of the entire family.

from Ely - I'm so glad you enjoyed my lil poem! By the way, ren.kat, I have a hard time posting my poems too. I actually debated about posting this one, since I'm very shy. Sometimes, though, I find I need other's opinions to help me polish and grow as a poet. Thanks again!

i'm enjoying reading everyone's work this month! my apologies for not writing on my own prompt but with my mom sick my own energies are drained. it's a strange waiting place. i have been writing some but no patience to pull poems out of it! funny, this is a rite of passage that i'm living, having a sick parent, and i feel too young to be in it. there'll be a rite of passage poem at some point for sure!